Re: [office-formula] CONVERT

["David A. Wheeler" <dwheeler@dwheeler.com>]

> Gnumeric implements Excel's CONVERT and uses that name. I don't know
> about others but we should probably chose the name assignment to satisfy
> the majority, so if more functions call Excel's version CONVERT than
> that name ought to be used for the excel version.

Does Gnumeric have a name for OOo's "CONVERT" function?  I don't have my "stuff" with me right now... I vaguely remember a EUROCONVERT being involved somewhere.

Clearly there are cases where we will need to have two different functions with different names, when the general functionality is similar but the specific semantics are different.  I'd love to have a principled way to make the names; names are basically not a technical issue & it's easy to endlessly argue.

The basic idea of "use the simple name for the common function" makes sense; we can look at various implementations and give them a vote. Adding "_E" for an Ecma/Excel function is sensible where the Excel function is bizarre but there's a reason to support it (such as with ADDRESS/INDIRECT... indeed, a FLOOR_E and CEILING_E might be a good idea).  Conversely, if only OOo has its semantics for CONVERT, a CONVERT_O might be okay.

--- David A. Wheeler